


and the whole world smiles with you

by twistedingenue



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Academia, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 22:28:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1242877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedingenue/pseuds/twistedingenue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You shouldn't be so hard on Barnes," Jane says from the lab bench where she's working, and Darcy doesn't know where to start with that statement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and the whole world smiles with you

**Author's Note:**

> First off, thanks to jadecharmer and fireun for the fantastic beta work. I wrote this while sick and dizzy, and all the red made me so happy. Mostly because it wasn't every single word.

"You shouldn't be so hard on Barnes," Jane says from the lab bench where she's working, and Darcy doesn't know where to start with that statement. Barnes and Rogers have just cleared the lab door.

Everyone takes a turn checking in on Foster at Culver. They stay a week or two, and it's much more relaxed than the security personnel SHIELD wanted to assign to them. Darcy doesn't doubt that the thugs have undercover agents at the school, but they stay away from the research team. Darcy still hasn't gotten over SHIELD not answering her call with everything in London, and they can pay the price in her stubborn refusal of assistance. And if it wins them the pleasure of meeting Thor's new allies, so much the better.

Stark comes in to do a guest lecture one week. Banner does a few stints in the biology labs, ostensibly to wrap up his old research. Barton somehow manages to watch them while avoiding Selvig at all costs, and Natasha poses as a grad student from another college needing to use their facilities. Thor is a constant flow, here one moment and another not.

But of them all, Rogers is there most often. A little over a half a year into the arrangement, he's joined by a dark-haired man with a prosthetic arm and a permanent scowl. Rogers is great fun, which Darcy likes, and spends more time with them than the rest. He sits and sketches and asks questions about Jane's research that are more insightful than they have any right to be. But Barnes is restless, paces and roams about, getting into things he shouldn't. Things that Darcy has to clean up after, because Ian went back to London, and she doesn't get to delegate anymore, and he drives Darcy crazy. Darcy gives crazy right back.

"And why is that?" she answers, sing-song and bored.

Foster levels her gaze at Darcy, and that means serious shit. Jane doesn't look away from her work for anything less than a set of golden abs most days. The scientist bites her lips and looks away, uncertain.

"I'm not sure you are cleared for that." Jane blinks a few times and her head head jerks slightly as a thought occurs. "I don't think I was cleared for that either, come to think of it."

"Jane," Darcy whines, putting to rest any concerns that she might actually be an adult with the way she can draw out the vowels of a one syllable name. "Don't leave me hanging, come on."

"He's had a very rough go of life, Darcy. Harder than most people, okay? Just give him a little bit of a break and show some damn kindness. He hasn't had a lot of it," Jane says. She gives Darcy a pointed look as she adds, "And you might want to check your history books and look up the Howling Commandos while you’re at it."

 

* * *

Darcy does. She knows the library like no one else and grabs a few books on the history of the Howling Commandos and their legacy. Once curled up in an alcove, she doesn't get more than ten pages in before she hits the first photo. It's Steve and Barnes. Their arms around each other’s shoulders like brothers, and grinning like loons. It takes a moment for Darcy to understand that whatever Steve went through, being trapped mostly dead in ice for decades, Barnes has aged enough in his features to make her think he's been alive the entire time. Somehow. That he's been alive doesn't even seem weird to her anymore. Instead, she wonders why and not how the hell this is possible.

She's never seen a smile on his lips, but in every photo there is a sense of laughter to them. They mock and they tug up at the corners, sometimes harder and harsher, even sad, but they smile. Darcy has never seen a smile on Barnes she knows, and she can't help but think and imagine how it would look on his older features.

Darcy skims and reads, reads how Barnes -- always called Bucky --  supposedly died. She wonders how the history books will change with the knowledge of his survival. Or even if they will.

When Rogers and Barnes make their next stop, she spends more time watching Barnes than she should. She barely even looks away when he glances at her with a puzzled expression. She doesn't even blush.

Barnes starts watching her the next day, something frank and assessing in his gaze. That does make her blush.

 

* * *

"What's your damn problem?"  Barnes demands, quietly furious, lines furrowed between his brows. "Does something about me bother you, Lewis?"

He hasn't cornered her, not exactly, but her office as a grad assistant is tiny, and she's lucky to not have to share it. But the result is that he's blocking her exit, his hands on her desk. He follows her eyes as they travel down to where his metal hand grips the flimsy wood.

"Please don't break my desk. They might make me pay for it," Darcy squeaks. She clears her throat before she speaks again. "I'm sorry. I'd say I don't mean to, but that's shit."

Barnes runs his skin and flesh through his hair, tugging at the ends as he sits in the rickety chair that’s meant for freshman to squirm in. "So, what is it that offends you?"

"I'm trying to work you out," Darcy offers and hopes he understands her curiosity and accepts her honesty. "I know who you are, Bucky Barnes, but I can't figure out how you got to be here. You were younger than Steve, but, clearly, you look older than him now."

"We do fuck with the normal timeline of aging, don't we?" He sneers. His eyes narrow, suspicion heavy in his blue gaze. "No one's told you? What I did? Who I've been?"

"Why would they?" Darcy answers back with a shrug. "Seriously, I'm a poli-sci grad student who leads a 101 discussion section . I have a strange enduring attachment to an astrophysicist and her hunky boyfriend. I'm not getting read in on state secrets here. I only know who you are because I know how books work."

Barnes stills for a few moments, then gets up. He closes the door to her office, cocooning them in silence, in their own little world, before he once again takes his seat. He leans forward in the chair, arms resting on his knees. His hair is brushed to the side of his face when he looks up at her. His voice is soft when he speaks. "Would you stop if I told you?"

Darcy hesitates. "Are you allowed to tell me?"

"It's my goddamn life, I'll tell who I want," he growls. Leaning back in his chair, Bucky lets out a sigh as he looks her over.

"Political science, you said?” he asks with a quirk of his eyebrow. “You cover the Soviets?"

"Only in excruciating detail." She mutters, and she’s learned far more than she often needs. There is more to the world than Western Powers versus Communism, but don't let the undergrads know that, or they might actually want to learn something useful.

"They had a program,” Barnes tells her. “For assassins and spies. Worked farther outside the gray areas than normal. I was plucked out of near death. Everything I knew about myself written over by that program. You want to know who did the worst things in the world since the war ended? You'll find me there. Check your damn history books that you’re so fond of. Look up the Winter Soldier."

It's a ghost story, told by her professors as something to laugh at, an obvious exaggeration of a corrupt government. Except Barnes doesn't have a reason to lie to her.

"Jane told me I should be kind to you," Darcy relents. "I think I understand a little bit why now."

"Having a pretty girl look at me isn't the hardship I made it out to be, Lewis."

"Yeah, but it would be creepy if you were doing it to me." Then she remembers how Barnes looks in the black on black getup he favors. "The staring, not the looking,” she stammers, fumbling over her words. She takes a deep breath. “I'm making a mess of my apology. I'll stop staring. I just have one question, though."

Barnes tips his head, waiting for her to speak, the rest of his body as still as a headstone.

“Why?” she asks, pushing ahead before she can second-guess herself. “You said you could tell who you wanted about your past. About what happened to you. But why me? Why now?”

Bucky doesn’t say anything and Darcy thinks that, maybe, she might have pushed him too far. That she isn’t going to get an answer. She manages to keep from babbling, though, to cover up her nerves and her feeling that she might have offended him. And she’s rewarded when, eventually, he speaks and his face breaks into openness.

“Maybe I just thought it was time. Time for the ghost to stop hiding in the shadows, time for the monster to come out. Time to start new. See if a guy like me can get a fresh slate.” Without waiting for her to respond, Barnes stands and walks to the door, opening it. He pauses before walking through, turning back to look at her. “Worth a shot, anyway. Ain’t got much else I can lose at this point.”

   

* * *

 

Darcy does stop staring, but she doesn't really stop looking at all. It's a few more weeks before Steve and Barnes, Bucky, come back round again. This time it's a bit easier between them.

Darcy invites them all to Jane's apartment, because it has the larger of their kitchens. Grad housing is pretty much a futon with a mini-fridge and a microwave, but it's home. She makes them all dinner. It's mostly to get Jane out of the lab for a night, because Darcy is not much a cook.

But Darcy's mother insisted that she learn to make five "man-keeping" dishes. As a result, she can roast the hell out of a chicken and mash up potatoes as well as anyone can. It's a good dinner. Even if Steve and Darcy are the ones keeping up conversation for most of the night, because Jane keeps retreating in her head -- Darcy can practically see the wheels a-turning in her brain --  and Barnes seems a little more content to sit back and react. For once, though, he's not on edge. When coffee is served, he leans back with an arm slung around Darcy's chair next to his.

His fingers occasionally brush over her shoulder, leaving soft tingles in their wake. It’s strange just how warm his arm feels when it's just metal and components and her own heat being absorbed.

As the night wears on, he comes out of his shell a little bit. While Darcy talks about some of her students, and their struggles to see the long march of history behind current events, he turns to her and offers up more than just the standard non-committal noises he’s given all night.

"I've lived the long march, " Barnes says, and his lips start a slow ascent upwards towards a smile. "And, I swear, I don't get what's happened either."

"You've got a long way to go, Bucky, before you can honestly be the old man yelling get off my lawn." Darcy realizes she's using a familiar name, one she has no idea if she has the right to until it’s well out of her mouth. "But you'll be the best at it, I'm sure. I'll supply your rocking chair myself."

She hasn't heard him laugh before, loud and sharp and sustained, and he looks at her with a grin. "Will you bring a second chair and sit beside me, Darcy?"

"Would you like it if I did?" she counters lightly. She feels the lightest of touches on her shoulder again, curling almost to her neck.

"I think you could be a pretty good shot. Gonna need help getting all the young folks away."

Steve pulls her aside before they leave.

"Thank you," he says. "You're the first person Buck's told about all this under his own volition."

"He's barely told me anything," Darcy responds.

"But he's told you what he can. And he's smiling. He's been too serious since I got him back. Not that I can blame him,” Steve says with a shrug. “I didn't feel much like smiling, either."

He holds out his hands, grasping both of hers in his firm grip. "It's nice to come here where there's not as much weight on either of us, that's all."

"Guarding a couple of women and an old man? Not exactly exciting work."

"We've had a lot of excitement in our lives. A little light work isn't going to go amiss, Darcy.” He gives her hands one last squeeze before he drops them. “See you in a couple of weeks. We've got some overseas work."

 

 

* * *

It's more than a couple of weeks for Rogers and Barnes to rotate into their lives again. Darcy is about 96% done with her idiot students and their even more idiotic papers, and the only reason she hasn't strangled anyone is because she doesn't know who the SHIELD plants are in her class.

 

"If you don't want to be marked over with red pen, I suggest you stay out of the circle of mediocrity," Darcy advises when she looks up at Bucky from her place on the floor.

"I wouldn't want to be associated with being anything other than amazing," he deadpans, raising his eyebrows. Darcy tilts her head slightly, studying the man in front of her. He looks a little looser than usual. Like he's finally gotten the stick out of his ass or something.

"I wouldn't expect anything less from you. You could probably write a better paper. I think I wasted half a semester on these kids. I might just be a crummy section leader," Darcy admits. "That has to be it. One hundred students and maybe three decent papers. The rest are just regurgitated nonsense. I'm pretty sure one of those three is a baby-faced SHIELD plant. I am a crappy teacher."

"Give yourself some credit, Lewis. You aren't teaching the whole thing are you?" Bucky sits just outside the ring of papers. "Two other TA's and the professor get to share the burden."

"Did I tell you that?" Darcy asks, eyes narrowed as she rifles back through their previous conversations.

"Did you think we weren't briefed on your academic career?"

Darcy deflates a little, slumping into herself. She takes off her glasses to rub her eyes, "I think I need a break. There's a coffee shop a couple streets over that's open all night. Walk with me?"

Bucky half smiles and helps her up. It's a dark night, not even a moon out to provide light. Jane's out with Selvig and Steve doing some research, and the tight space in the over-stuffed vehicle meant they couldn't all go. Plus, Darcy had grading to do, a chore she's put off as long as possible. Jane sometimes marvels at her ability to take classes, TA, be her research assistant, and sleep, but Darcy's superpower is time management, so she's doing alright.

Somewhere along the walk, Bucky puts his arm around her shoulder again. This time it stays there, a continuation from weeks before. Now though the heaviness is comforting, even stabilizing with all its weight.  Darcy tucks herself  against him, and they fall into step with each other as they walk at a slow pace.

Darcy gets the largest cup of coffee they are legally allowed to give her, and gets it as strong as she can handle. Bucky's drink looks like something a kid would consume in comparison.

"You know, I work with some very high strung people. Men and women who literally carry the world's troubles in their heads and hands, and none of them drink nearly as much coffee as you do," he comments, a wary eye on the cup in her hands.

"You need to spend more time with academics." She takes a quick, cautionary sip of the bitter coffee. 

"I can think  of someone I’d…" Bucky cuts off, "I like coming here, you know."

"It's your first time in this shop," Darcy teases.

"It's nice to be someplace where no one wants to kick my ass for something I've done."

"Don't go near my department, then."  She can't stop herself from being an idiot. "You'll find lots of people who want to do that, but wouldn't be very good at it."

"Darcy, please, just listen. I don't get to go many places where I don't have much history. I love Steve, I love Natasha, but sometimes when I look at them, I can't see past their expectations of me." Bucky shrugs, takes a drink of his own coffee before continuing, "I come here and I can see a future that knows the past but isn't held to it."

Darcy kisses him. Quick, only a fraction longer than a peck, but long enough that she knows what his lips feel like against hers. Wide and lush and warm, and he's just warmer than he has any right to be.

"I'm sorry,” she says when she pulls back. “I thought that's where you were going."

"It was. I think I used to be better at this, I should have been kissing you an hour ago."

"Try a few weeks ago, hotshot."  He tilts her head up and kisses her again, subdued for public consumption, but she's getting the idea that she's not going to need the coffee to stay awake tonight.

They walk back to the lab together the way they came, but it doesn’t feel the same at all.


End file.
